Category Archives: Atomic testing

It was great to see a huge Cumulonimbus squatting on Ms. Mt. Lemmon yesterday just after noon, then hours of intermittent thunder as new clouds piled high into the troposphere around it. One site, White Tail by Catalina Highway up there, got almost two inches in just an hour! So, the atmosphere was quite juicy yesterday.

Still, to see all those pretty curtains, rain ones, dropping down around us as new Cumulus powered up into Cumulonimbus clouds, many such events due to Cumulus spawned by outflow winds from the Lemmon dumps, was visually nice, but “unsatisfying” because none landed on me.

Too, we need to catch up to our nearly 7-inch normal July-August rain from the half that we have now, and we came up with only a trace here in the Sutherland district.

BTW, under “advanced observation taking”, you would have logged the first drops from the anvil overhang of the “storm on the Lemmon” at 1:51 PM. Well, maybe not exactly that minute at YOUR house, but I nailed it! Had to be outside though, and wait around for those drops, since it was not clear drops would even make it to the ground from what was over me. The wait was worth it.

Of course, those early storms, rising off the Catalina peaks, usually don’t make it here off the mountains early on with anything but sprinkles. Only later in the day, when we’ve been baked some more, do those giants start making their way on to the lower elevations, and yesterday they did.

Here is your cloud photo diary for yesterday, beginning with your precursors for a good cloud day:

10:51 AM. RIght here you should have been thinking, “Man, this could be a fantastic rain day!” Look at how thin and tall this cloud got, and it happened soon after the first scruff formed (Cu fractus).

11:14 AM, the prior cloud devolving into a reminder, with its narrow stem, of atomic testing back in the 1950s1 see historical note, “nuclear winter” scenarios in the 1980s. a way of defeating global warming…..(gallows humor). The flattening of the cloud at top indicates that there was a temperature barrier that still needed to be punched through as the day warmed.12:28 PM. Minimal lid capping prior cloud punched through as day warmed–see protruding top; thunder began at this time. I probably did not need to tell you that. Sorry.2:20 PM. Pretty curtains, just after drenching Pusch Ridge, drift S to deluge TUS–see today’s AZ Star. It is truly remarkable how much rain can fall from these clouds! Note the stranding here, detailing differences in the cloud’s structure above, generally associated with hail and graupel up there.

Today’s clouds and weather?

You know the drill. Early cloud conditions (due to Altocumulus opacus), followed by a slow burn off, then the rise of the Cumulus clouds. U of AZ mod expects a very active day today, so maybe the curtain will come down on Catalina this afternoon.

Farther out: “tropical river” still floods SE Cal and western AZ, as we remain on the edge, getting something but not the full force as those areas will. Remnant center passes over Yuma Sunday AM. Might be worth a trip. Hell, they could get their annual precip in 12 h, something to write to the family about if you’re there.

——————1 Historical note re “atomic testing”: It was a common perception in those days of atomic testing, generally scientists believed, by naive, uninformed peoples, that the explosions were changing the weather. So, when anything weird in weather happened, some would point to “atomic testing”, kind of like some scientists do with global warming and weird weather today. (“Real scientists” are more cautious about attributing a storm or other singular event to GW.)

The US Weather Bureau (ATOMIC EXPLOSIONS AND WEATHER USWB) and the US government went to great lengths to explain to these people why atomic testing could not have changed the weather; it was too small an event to have changed the weather.

In fact, with the rise of Chaos Theory, where it is deemed by some scientists2 that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil might have something to do with a tornado in Texas, of COURSE, atomic testing changed the friggin’ weather! We just don’t know how and where…

Also, it is normal and proper for scientists to correct, enhance, or reject prior theories as new facts come in. “Hey” think about how embarrassed the cosmologists were back in the 1990s or so when they discovered they had the friggin’ sign of the “Cosmic Constant” wrong. The Universe was expanding, ever more rapidly, not collapsing. Then, and this is really funny, they made up some magic called, “Dark Energy” to explain that inexplicable new finding! But, as the ideals of science demand, they did change their minds and theories! Not sure that happens so easily today in some domains I could think of.

2Nick, research faculty, U of WA, private communication, as seen in the Seattle Times.